Talking about a great player’s work ethic has become something of a cliché in sports, as most coaches like to regularly cite a player’s willingness to stay after practice for extra reps or how hard they might work on their skills in the offseason. But when it comes to Montgomery High School pitcher Peyton Schnackenberg, the kind of work she does to elevate herself to the top of the varsity softball world is anything but common.

Sure, the junior righty has been known to stay late or arrive early to work on her pitching or her hitting. And yes, her physical fitness and game-readiness is a priority. But the 2017 Courier News Softball Player of the Year has taken her work to a level not often seen, especially for a softball player.

Cougars first-year head softball coach Bryan Upshaw gets to see the work Schnackenberg does on the field. But he also runs the weight room at Montgomery High School during the summer, and not only did he see Schnackenberg every day, along with her workout partner Kaitlyn Kocinski, the team’s senior center fielder, but the junior certainly showed she wasn’t messing around, setting Montgomery girls weight-lifting records in the bench press (145 pounds, just short of her body weight), the dead lift (295), squat (335) and clean (170).

“She puts in that work,” said Upshaw, who served as Montgomery’s varsity assistant last year. “She stays after practice to get those extra reps in, working on conditioning or pitching or hitting, and she just loves it. She works hard because she wants to be the best, that’s the kind of mentality she has.”

Schnackenberg said her father is a certified strength and conditioning specialist and he has trained her, so when she hit high school and started going to the weight room, the training had prepared her for the Olympic lifts and helped her get stronger, she said, and just take it to the next level.

Endurance training is another huge part of Schnackenberg’s regiment, and the results are evident in the fact she has consistently been strong late in games, helping her finish off opponents. Schnackenberg played travel ball with Maggie Balint last year, a Pennsylvania high school pitcher now at the University of Oregon, and used to work out with her. Balint’s mom was huge on endurance and Schnackenberg would show up Sunday mornings, run suicide drills and an exercise Balint taught her called "pitch and runs," where she’d throw a pitch from the circle, run to the catcher and grab the ball out of her outstretched glove, and then run back to the circle and throw another pitch.

“I would do 25 pitch and runs in a row and then I’d stop,” said Schnackenberg, who not only already has committed to St. John’s University on a full softball scholarship, but also will throw the shotput for the Red Storm. “If I’m still throwing strikes at the end, I know I did well that day.

“If I work out multiple times a week, my (pitch) speed will definitely stay up there near 65. But if I’m not lifting at up, I’m definitely not as fast as my top speed.”

Schnackenberg’s pitching numbers are as good as it gets, as she went 18-3 with a 0.35 ERA, allowing just 63 hits, 27 walks and seven earned runs over 140 innings, striking out 215. But her offensive numbers were also impressive – and she credits her weight and endurance training in that regard – as she hit .350 with nine doubles, four home runs and 26 RBIs for the 24-3 Skyland Conference Raritan Division and Central Group IV champions.

Not bad for a first-year ace.

After playing first base and shortstop as a freshman, but never seeing the circle, Schnackenberg shared pitching duties with now-graduated Gillian O’Connor last season, and showed plenty of positive results, going 12-3 with a 1.12 ERA, good for a second-team All-Area nod. But now, as the true No. 1, she certainly embraced the role.

“She’s the kind of kid that as long as she’s in the game, it really doesn’t matter what position she’s playing,” Upshaw said. “But, obviously, she wants to be in the circle, and this year she got to be the No. 1, she got the call in most of the games, and she just took advantage of the time.

"She wanted to prove that she’s the No. 1, because we do have a solid No. 2 in Abby (O’Connor), who could be the No. 1 for some teams in the area. Peyton just puts the pedal to the metal and doesn’t look back. And from the first pitch of the game she just gets stronger. She was just lights out.”

Montgomery began the year on an 18-game winning streak, and a shocking 2-1 victory over Immaculate Heart in 11 innings in the season’s second game was certainly a driving force, as the Eagles would go on to win its third straight state Non-Public A championships and the inaugural Tournament of Champions this year. Schnackenberg was brilliant, allowing no earned runs on just seven hits, walking two and striking out 12, as the Cougars showed themselves they can roll with anyone in the state and Schnackenberg proved she is capable of shutting down the best.

“After that game, we were all on the bus, and we felt that we could definitely compete with anybody,” Schnackenberg said. “I had that game marked on my calendar long before the season started. After that, I kind of just settled into the role. It definitely brought (my confidence) up there. There are so many good hitters on that team and you have to stay sharp throughout the entire lineup. So knowing that if I could keep up with them and match them, I could beat anybody else.”

“She’s the kind of player that any team in the nation would love to have,” Upshaw said. “And when you have that kind of player on the team, we feel like any goal is reachable, conference or county or states. When she is in the circle, any opponent is beatable.”

The decade had been a grind for Montgomery, which hadn’t won a conference title in five years before barely grabbing the Raritan Division title last year. The team also hadn’t made a county final since 2010 and hadn’t won a section since 2004. But as hungry as the Cougars were entering this season, despite the success, to say Montgomery is now actually hungrier would be an understatement.

Luckily, with a pitcher like Schnackenberg heading a strong returning class, as well as gaining the big-game experience they lacked entering this campaign, there’s no reason to believe the Cougars won’t have a legit chance of satiating themselves next spring.

“We are starving now,” Upshaw said. “Going into this year, we didn’t have the experience of a county final, of a sectional final game, a Group IV semifinal. We’ve now experienced those games and we now know the pressure that comes with those games, and I feel like that’s going to help us next year. The kids want the county more than ever. That was a heartbreaker for them.”

“At the end of last season we all wrote a list of goals we had for next year, like county championship final,” Schnackenberg said. “But I actually wrote in my teammate’s yearbook ‘I can’t wait to win states with you next year,’ so we had very high hopes. So while we definitely surpassed everybody’s expectations this year, there’s still room for improvement. We just need to keep rolling. Keep working hard and keep going at it.”